Billy Graham |
September 8, 1972
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Billy Graham
Reverend; Founder, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; Author, The Jesus Generation; Radio Host, The Hour of Decision
Q: What do you think Christ would say about a Christian's involvement in a war or, more specifically, killing other people under any circumstances?
A: Well, first of all, I do not believe that the Bible teaches pacifism. I think there are certain wars that have to be fought in the world in which we live, such as the Second World War when Hitler had to be resisted. There are other wars that are very questionable. And, I think there's been great confusion over the present war and a great dilemma for Christian, and I think that each Christian has to follow his own conscience and that conscience must be respected.
Q: What can an organized church do, as a body, to foster peace?
A: The Bible teaches that we have to work for peace. That's why I support the United Nations and the activities of the United Nations even though I think they are failing, at the moment, miserably to bring peace to the world, especially in the Middle East, because they are powerless. When the United Nations charter was granted, we did not give them the power to enforce peace. All they can do is pass resolution. So, we can work for peace through organizations like the United Nations. And, then the Bible teaches we are to pray for peace. There's no reason why we can't have a world wide prayer. I believe that the Vietnam War could have been stopped long ago if millions of Christians had gotten on their knees and prayed and millions of people around the world had sent up a wall of prayer. I believe that, perhaps, this was the greatest failing of the church. I think that's the thing that the church can do is to pray and work for peace.
Q: You may have answered this somewhat in this last question. What proposals would you like to see enacted by the current administration to stop war? Is it basically the personal decision for a salvation or can it be legislated?
A: I'm not sure that I understand the total question as to what the present administration can do. I think that, personally, that President Nixon wants peace more than anybody I've ever known. And, I can say that from personal conversation with him. And, I would say that he's inherited a bear by the tale, and it's not easy to turn loose. And, he's turning loose as fast as he can. And, I think that the present policy will probably work or it may not. I really don't know. I don't have any advice to offer. I spent the weekend, weekend before last with President and Mrs. Johnson down on their ranch in Texas. And, I'm reminded a little bit of Paul "Bear" Bryant who is the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.
And, the Orange Bowl game had been played with Nebraska. They'd lost. This was three or four years ago, and I was in President Rose's home, the president of the University of Alabama. And, he said "Paul", he said, "are you the one that called that quarterback sneak at the end of the game there when it failed?" And, "Bear" Bryant said "Yes," he said, "I called it." And, Dr. Rose said "Bear", said, "I don't believe I'd had done it". And Bear said, "Well, Dr. Rose if I'd had two weeks in the Bahamas Islands to think it over as you had, I wouldn't have called it either."
Q: This member asks, do we have to accept the premise, "man is prone to violence?"
A: I think we do until there is a total transformation of human nature. I think man is going to try to transform human nature by, through genetics, through drugs such as Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World envisioned. I think we're very close to creating drugs now that could transform some aspects of human nature. I think we're very close to even a man being able to give birth to a baby. You can read it in this week's Time magazine. I was a little amazed myself. But, according to them it probably will happen before the year 2000. I'll be a little old for that. But, I'd like to be around to see it.
But, the human heart has got to be transformed. Where does this hate, and lust, and greed come from? We've fought it out in every generation. Every generation fights it out. And, we think we're on the verge of conquering war and hate and greed and then it breaks out somewhere else. Why? It's the human heart. We have heart trouble, and it infects the entire human race. And this is why Jesus Christ came. He came to die for our sins. He said, "You must be born again." He said, "You must have a whole new nature." And, he said, "I can give it to you." I've had three or four people come here to this table, since I've been here, as Mr. Mitchell will testify, who've said I received Christ at your Oakland meeting last year, and my life is so different and so changed. Some people in this room have had the experience of having their lives changed because you see the greatest evidence of a changed person is love. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciplines in that ye have loved one to another." He can give you a supernatural love to love somebody that you normally would not love.
Q: You mentioned the service which you attended last night. This member asks, "Last night there was some TV news coverage on interdenominational services for the Israeli athletes. Shouldn't there be more of this"?
A: I suppose you mean more television coverage of religious services. Is that the question? If it is, yes.
Q: This member would like to know, do you think the Olympic games should continue? Won't Canada's Games be dangerous?
A: I think that the Olympic structure, organizational structure, is in serious jeopardy. It's being made now, a political football. There is a great deal of questions about the refereeing. There is certainly a question in my mind, and I agree with Joe Garagiola at this point, that many of the countries from Eastern Europe have no distinction between professional and amateur. They are really professional. Suppose we had Joe Frazier over there, we'd come back with a gold medal in the heavyweight division.
And, we ought to have our best athletes, it seems to me, from all over the world, whether amateur or professional competing in the Olympic games and that all governments should be represented, all peoples regardless of what government they come from. Because if you kick out Rhodesia, what about Uganda or what about the Soviet Union itself? I mean, if we're going to start doing it on a political basis, there are many questions about many governments that have nothing to do with the individual athlete. This ought to be an athletic contest, not a political contest.
Q: Reverend Graham, what is the religious significance of the recent tragedies in Ireland and especially those of the Olympic games, and is there a solution for the crisis in Northern Ireland?
A: First of all, I would like to give you a message that Cardinal Conway, who is the Cardinal of all of Ireland, and by the way he lives in North Ireland, that was something that I did not know. And, I visited for about two hours with him in Armagh. And he said, "Please tell the American people that this is not a religious conflict. It's political." I met with the leaders of the IRA privately just before midnight, after changing automobiles three times to go to their secret rendezvous. They talked for one hour before I even opened my mouth. They said the same thing: "This is not religious; it's political."
And, I came away from Northern Ireland feeling that religion is only being used against each other because of ancient feuds and battles between Protestants and Catholics, but it's really a political problem. And, until there is a political solution that will have to take place between the government installment and Dublin and London, Westminster, it's not going to be solved. And, it's becoming so serious because now they have children fighting each other, little children - seven, eight, nine, and ten years of age with knives, stabbing each other. This is the tragedy. It's being passed on to our future generation. And, many people who thought they saw hope in Northern Ireland six months ago are giving up. Catholics and Protestants alike are beginning to leave, and it's certainly one of the great tragedies of our time. But, I don't, do not think it can be blamed totally on the church. Though the church certainly has its failures and its weaknesses and its faults, both Catholic and Protestant.
Q: In view of crime in the world today, do you feel you are gaining or losing in your great crusade to make this a better world?
A: The object of my crusades is not to make this a better world. That is only a side objective. The real objective is to build a kingdom of God by getting people to enter the kingdom of God through repentance and faith in Christ, to have them lead new lives and then go back into society to live and to let their light shine. If we go by statistics, we're losing because the population is increasing so much faster than we're getting people converted into the kingdom of God. Now there's some areas of the world where the conversion process to Christ and Christianity is very rapid. All of Black Africa will be Christian by 2000 if the present trends continue, according to the World Council of Churches.
In Latin American, in Indonesia, in certain parts of The Philippines, in Korea where the churches doubled in the last decade, in many parts of the world there's great encouragement. We are seeing a great youth awakening in America of major proportions. But, two things are happening in America: one, we see evil is getting worse, a lot of occults, Satan worship, a lot of interest in occults and on the other hand, thousands of young people at the university campuses turning to God and to Christ. So we see two things happening at the same time: good is getting better, evil is getting worse. You say that's a contradiction. Jesus said, "The wheat and the tares will grow together until the end." And, we see the wheat today and the tares growing, not standing still, but growing at the same time.
Q: Please comment on the prophecy as discussed in The Late, Great Planet Earth. Do you agree with this book?
A: I agree with about 90 percent of it. There are certain points, Hal Lindsey's a friend of mine who wrote it down at UCLA. And, there are certain points that I might question. But, by and large, it's a marvelous book. It is a runaway best seller, and if you haven't read it, you ought to get it and read it. I'm sure you can get it at almost any bookstore. It's now in pocket back edition called, The Late Great Planet Earth. It has to do with the end of the world and the prophecies of the Bible. And, it's a very, very good little book. My wife and I bought about 200 copies to give away to our friends.
Q: Now turning to the field of education, should a teacher endeavor to impart a set of values to her or his students?
A: Definitely. I think that man becomes a educated animal if he doesn't have moral values from which he can get his proper perspectives for life. What we have done in America, it seems to me, in education: I addressed the presidents and the deans of the big 10 universities recently, and I spoke to them on the missing link in modern education. And, I said that the missing link was at this point, we're educating the minds. We're building bodies through athletic programs. But, we are doing nothing, almost nothing about the third part of man - spiritual. Man is a trinity, a mind, a body, a spirit. And, so we're educating young people today and that's why we're seeing so much rioting.
I'll give you a quick example, Sargent Shriver, when he was Ambassador to Paris called me on the phone one day and he said, "Billy", he said, "would you like to meet the leaders of the demonstrators here in Paris, the student rioters?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I'll invite them to my home, we'll serve them dinner, and," he said, "then you can talk to them". So he had them. I flew to Paris. He had a Jesuit theologian there. He also had Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, who was then the secretary of the World Council of Churches, the three of us, clergymen. After five hours, Sargent Shriver said, as they were leaving, "You know, their problem is religious. It's a theological problem."
He said, they're searching for purpose and meaning in life that they're not finding at the university. And, I find that true in American education. We need to balance it, and teachers need to give moral and spiritual values to their students. You say how do we do it in a pluralistic society where you have Catholic, Protestant, Jews? I've often thought all of us could agree on the 10 commandments. Let's just read the 10 commandments every morning to them because we will be saying to them we believe in something. The way we're doing it now we're saying that it doesn't matter, and our young people are getting the wrong impression in the school room.
Q: I know you discussed this in your speech, but you might like to elaborate on this point. Should prayer be permitted in public schools?
A: Yes. I think that we should not have state imposed prayers or state written prayers, but I think it should be permitted. I am against the constitutional amendment. I don't think we ought to fool with the constitution at this point, but I think the Supreme Court needs to clarify what they have already ruled on. I think that every school committee in the country or school board has interpreted it the way they want to interpret it. And, I think that it needs to go back to the Supreme Court for further clarification.
And, I believe that we can get a very good ruling that will be acceptable to the American people from the Supreme Court. Everywhere that it's been put on the ballot, such as recently in Florida, it ran about 76 percent for prayer in the schools in the state of Florida and even more in the state of Maryland where it was on the ballot in the last election. And, I think the American people want it. I think American parents want it, but I do not believe it should be state imposed. I think it, perhaps, should be in the form of a silent prayer where each could pray in his own way. And, in a pluralistic society such as ours, we want to be careful that we do not infringe upon the freedoms of other people. But I think it can be done on a voluntary basis.
Q: Moving now to young people and youth, are young people around the world the solution to peace in the world rather than government?
A: Well, young people have to become involved in government. I'm in favor of very religious young people getting involved in government. And, I'm glad to say that I have some friends who are deeply committed running in both parties this year, primarily so that Christian witness can be made if they're elected. Two or three of them are already sorry they were running [laughs] because they say it's very difficult to keep their faith in their particular situation. Now, that's in the South. I don't know about here in the West.
But, I think that you have to have structured governments. And, I think that the, that Christian young people ought to infiltrate with their Christian witness. On the campus, I've urged Christian young people to go into journalism and get into these college newspapers and become editors of these college and university newspapers. Let's get them back on the right track.
Q: Once again, on youth, when our parents or grandparents or great grandparents in the 1870s shocked their parents by insisting on shaving their beards and cutting their hair, were they displaying the same diabolical affliction that causes current youth to refuse to shave or to cut their hair?
A: When the beards and the long hair first started a few years ago, it was an act of protest on the part of young people today. It's not protest at all. It's a matter of personal choice and a matter of style. And, I have a son-in-law with a beard. I have a son with a beard, and I like both of them.
Q: What part can organized religion play in combating the growing drug problem?
A: I think that a professor has written a book over here at Berkeley on this subject of religion and drugs. And, he says that it's a very interesting phenomena to him that there is definitely a relationship between religion and drugs. The word "pharmacia," which is a Greek word that we translate in the Bible "witchcraft" is the root word that we get the word drug from. And, there is a relationship of some sort. And, he said this in this book, he said that the only total complete cure that he knows for hard drugs is a very deep spiritual experience.
And he says I don't know what that's true, but he says, it is true. And, we only have two hospitals in America that are dedicated to the drug problem. One is in Fort Worth, Texas, and the other Lexington, Kentucky, Federal Hospital. And both of these hospitals, the psychiatrists say that they have less than one-half of one percent cured. And, the head psychiatrist at Lexington said the same thing. He said, "We find an interesting thing, when a person has a deep spiritual experience, we have much greater possibilities of curing their drug problem." And, of course we know the reason as Christians because we believe a supernatural act takes place when a person is born again.
Q: We have a pair of questions on the modern day church. Should we make more effort to try to contain the formal image of the minister or resign ourselves to getting with it? Or, how can we get the modern day church back to fundamentals and the teaching of the faith of our fathers?
A: Well, I think that we have so many denominations in America. You have about 400 in California, and you lead the world in your different religious expressions that it would be very difficult to have an image of any particular clergyman. That would not be true in Great Britain or in Germany or in Italy where people have an image of a certain clergyman. In America it's quite a bit different. I think that one of the great needs of the church today is to get back to the Bible. There's a new book just written by one of the leaders of the National Council of Churches who is the head of the human relations department of the National Council. It's entitled Why Conservative Churches are Growing. You can buy it at any bookstore now. I think it's published by Harper and Rowe.
Now conservative does not necessarily mean political conservative. It means theological conservative, more fundamental. The so-called fundamental churches in America are growing out of all proportion in comparison to the more liberal churches. Where the church has denied the Apostles Creed and denied the Bible and has become, more or less, a humanistic organization, it's in trouble. Where they're preaching and proclaiming the Bible and doing it in a simple, sometimes unorthodox way, appealing to young people, the church is growing. I know some churches that started seven or eight years ago like the first Presbyterian, Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They just went to the Bible. Now they are one of the largest churches in America.
I know a church near here that only had a handful in attendance. They took out the seats and started appealing to students in just talking about the Bible and letting the students stand up and give whatever they want to say. The place is packed out. The church must adapt and adjust. You see the methods change, but the message of the church should never change.
Q: We have time now for just one more question. Before asking it, however, Reverend Graham, I would like to thank you so very much on behalf of the members of The Commonwealth Club of California for your most interesting remarks, the answers to the questions. I think you can see from our audience here how very much they've appreciated it. I've taken the liberty of asking you two questions here, which could probably be the topic of another speech. Do you see any likelihood that the hundreds of varieties of Christianity will ever combine into one united Christian organization? And, one step further, can all Christian faiths and Jewish harmonize under ecumenism?
A: We can be friends and we can work together, and we can have dialogue together. But, syncretism will never work. I don't think the Jewish leadership would want it. I don't think the Christian leadership would want it because I have talked to the Chief Rabbi in Israel one day. And, we were having a cup of coffee and I said to him, "Sir, do you believe in the coming of Messiah?" He said, "I most certainly do." And, I said, "So do I, but" I said, "but I believe that Jesus was the Messiah." And, he smiled over his cup of coffee and he said, "Of course that's our difference."
And, I have a great friend in Europe by the name of Archbishop Cardineli, he is the papal nuncio to Brussels, and I go to visit him every time I go to Europe. We are very close, personal friends and have been for many years. He said "Billy we can remain friends if we face three things: you and I, Catholic and Protestant, are together in hope, in love, but we're not yet together in faith. We have differences. Let's face our differences and we can be friends." And, I think we have to realistically face the fact that there are differences in the way people worship God, in the type of church they want to go to. And, historical differences, national differences, ethnic differences, all kinds of differences that influence the way we worship. But the main thing is to have a personal relationship with that Messiah, whom I believe to be Jesus Christ. And, I want to say to you, sir, my appreciation to this marvelous audience and for the privilege of being here today. And, I'm sorry that this very deep cold I have, has kept me from being a little bit up to par. Thank you.
Generously funded by:
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Dee Dee Myers